Ground Construction Ltd – Going for Gold

The company is now in it’s 19th year of operation and has experienced an exponential but controlled growth. The continued advancement, reinvestment and progress over the years has culminated in GCL being rated as one of the top 10 concrete frame contractors in the UK (Construction News).  As the company has expanded and evolved, a greater breadth of services is now at our client’s disposal.

Apart from all aspects of Civil Engineering, Groundworks and Concrete Frames, we now offer a complete package that includes principle contractor roles, assisting clients with planning, liaising with local authorities, permeant works design, temporary works design and rebar detailing to compliment the services that we are able to provide. Our group companies also provide concrete solutions, tower cranes and skip hire services.

The ethos of the company has remained to provide a high-quality service, on or ahead of schedule and with a non-confrontational attitude. We place emphasis on always being able to provide cost-effective and value-engineered solutions. In developing continued relationships with repeat clients, we have now entered into a number of multi-beneficial partnering agreements. The measure of success can be judged from the numerous repeat orders we have received from valued clients. Since inception, GCL has successfully completed in excess of £800 million worth of work on more than 400 projects.

The company has grown incrementally to a size where it now employs over 1000 personnel and owns plant valued at over £20 million. The plant stock includes: Excavators, Tipper Trucks, Towercranes, Concrete Pumps, Dozers, Dump Trucks, Low-loaders, Skip Lorries, Formwork equipment and a vast array of small plant. We have relocated to our new Head Office in Welwyn Garden City, allowing the company to be able to undertake works within the London M25 and Home Counties region. Various storage depots located within this region including the main distribution yard in Welwyn Garden City, helps simplify the logistics and support of sites to an extent that progress on site is always continuous. Danielle Middlemass, Compliance Manager is our elected Fuel and Emissions Champion and she explains how important FORS is to our Company.

We came across FORS when tendering for work across London. When we looked at the requirements and benefits of joining the scheme we saw that they fitted in perfectly with our ethos of improving safety whilst complementing our drive to improve fuel efficiency and reduce our environmental impact’

We take compliance and safety very seriously, FORS did help us by providing training and tools that improved the policies and procedures’

The performance management toolkit really helped us set our targets for reducing our carbon footprint and improving our MPG. FORS has helped us improve our filing systems and procedures’

‘FORS has helped us achieve compliance and safety.’ – Danielle Middlemass – Assistant Transport Manager

All our drivers have completed their Safe Urban Driving course and we have also invested heavily in vehicle safety systems cameras, nearside proximity sensors and audible alarms for all our vehicles. All our drivers have also completed FORS E-Learning modules.

‘We have reduced our accidents across the whole fleet 30% since our baseline year.’ – Danielle Middlemass – Assistant Transport Manager

• We have also managed to reduce our Parking fines and charges 5.45% compared to our baseline year. We have increased our MPG across the whole fleet by 27.23% compared to our baseline year. We achieved this by making sure we always selected the best route possible to all our sites and we plan ahead before leaving the yard

• We get all my drivers to complete a comprehensive Medical Declaration on a annually basis even though the FORS Standard states once every 5 years. It’s also mentioned in the drivers handbook that if they at any point in time start suffering from a medical condition they need to notify the company ASAP as well as if they need to start taking medication prescribed by their GP or over the counter drugs. We will then investigate it to see if it’s still safe for the driver to be driving for the company and we may even ask the driver to get a letter from his doctor informing the company if he is still able to drive for the company. We will then start doing more driver assessments on the driver to make sure he isn’t a risk to the company or anyone on the road.
• We have adopted a recruitment policy to try and help us recruit young drivers into the Transport industry. We also use recruitment companies to try and help us recruit younger drivers.
• We only have 2 Operators yards and they are both in Industrial Estates. We only carry out work at our Welwyn Garden City site and we only use the St.Albans site for parking our Vehicles. Servicing is done by our mechanics at our Welwyn Garden City premises and as we are a waste management company we go to a site, load there and then go drop it off at its destination. Very rarely would we bring a load back to our yard and if we do it would stay on the lorry which means there is also no added noise. We have a few low loaders we use to move our own plant equipment to and from construction sites across the country.
• We carry heavy equipment and waste soil to and from construction sites across the whole country. We move anything from a digger to a crane to waste soil or aggregates. As we rely on our customers asking us to collect waste soil from various construction sites across the whole country, we never know where we are going until they need us. Therefore, we can’t afford to try and move anything via barge or train as we collect all the equipment from building sites and there is no other method than using a lorry and we then asked to deliver anywhere in the country. Using a Lorry is the most cost-effective way of moving our clients goods. We are replacing all our lorries with Euro 6 engines as and when they are due for replacement. We have looked at electric vehicles and because of the weights we carry and the fact that our lorries have specialist equipment fitted no manufacture have produced an alternative fuelled vehicle that can carry the weight we do and go over the same terrain we do.

We will continue using what FORS has taught us to improve our MPG and reduce any wasted idling we might have and keep our Parking fines and Charges as low as possible’

Gaining FORS Gold Accreditation shows how dedicated we are as a company to improving road safety and the safety of all vulnerable road users in London as well as nationally. We will continuously use what FORS has taught us to help reduce our carbon footprint and make the roads so safer for everyone that uses them. We have also managed to make a significant saving by reducing our fuel usage and improving our MPG. We have also reduced the amount of accidents we had on the previous year which resulted in our insurance company reducing our premiums.

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